Our Lady of La Vang

Comfort of the persecuted · Vietnam

In the midst of persecution, the Vietnamese Catholics who prayed the Rosary in the jungle of La Vang received, according to tradition, the comfort of the Virgin. Today it is the great national Marian shrine of Vietnam.

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Tradition places the origin around 1798, during the persecution of Christians under the emperor Cảnh Thịnh. Many Catholics fled into the jungle of La Vang; while they gathered at night to pray the Rosary, they received an apparition of the Virgin with the Child Jesus, who comforted them and promised them protection.

La Vang became the principal Marian shrine of the country. The church was destroyed and rebuilt several times, especially during the wars, but the devotion remained alive. In 1962, Saint John XXIII raised it to the rank of minor basilica, and Saint John Paul II underlined its importance when he canonised the 117 Vietnamese martyrs in 1988.